Twist the Mirror Wheel
by Jelynne
Summary: Thought, memory, and a place within the mind of Uchiha Itachi. The past never really lets go.


This is a bit of a surrealist-type piece, so the narrative is a trifle... broken. But then again, this is Itachi's mind we're wandering around in, so I suppose that's only to be expected.

Naruto still isn't mine. And that's a good thing, too. I can't even draw stick figures.

There are almost no spoilers, except for one or two minor ones related to the Uchiha Massacre. However, being familiar with all things Itachi would probably help.

* * *

**Twist the Mirror Wheel**

* * *

The moon was full that night, and Shisui was dead. Both of these things had been incredibly important back then, though he cannot remember why. 

_o_

And Sasuke, his former self insists, staring blood and anger and the terrible weight of knowledge at him across the rift of passed years.

Yes, and Sasuke. Sasuke cannot be weak. He must be strong. Strong enough to  
enough to  
to...

_o_

His teenage self stands in the darkness, in the light of a full moon, crosses his arms and stares back at him.

Blood and cold and murder and the flames of anger burning.

_o_

There were reasons. There were always reasons. Reasons for everything.

Such a familiar stranger, his teenage self.

_o_

The stadium had been utterly, completely silent at the end of his final match in the chuunin exams.

That is what he remembers now, though then he had barely registered it. He stood staring down at his opponent, waiting for him to get up again. Stood and waited, until someone wrapped careful hands around his arms and pulled him away. He remembers closing his eyes.

_o_

The sharingan sees the world in a thousand shades of red. The mangekyou sees nothing at all, and burns like slow fire. Like poison seeping in.

_o_

The clan's pride followed him in whispers through the town. How he had graduated from the academy so early. How you never had to teach him anything twice. How he had simply blinked his sharingan into existence one day as if he'd been doing it since the day he was born.

His father, in his pride, never hearing his protestations of it being no great feat, he was only remembering how.

Pride, he learned, is the greatest weakness.

_o_

It is far easier not to be human. Far easier to excise those softer parts one by one, to replace them with ice and steel. Ice needs no memory. Steel needs no reason.

His teenage self accuses from beyond the years, his sword still dripping blood.

That which is made of ice and steel cannot burn with such terrible anger, he wants to tell that self from the past. That which is not human cannot hate.

_o_

Sasuke used to sneak into his bed on nights that he was away on missions. Only when he was away, because only then was it safe to slip into his room in the dark.  
_it was a full moon that night_

More than once he would come back in the small hours of the morning to find his brother snuggled into his bedcovers in a small, sleeping bundle.  
_the kunai and shuriken they throw at him fly as slowly as pouring treacle and he dodges them as simply as breathing. he wants to stop, to tell them why they should stop resisting. it would be easy, so easy to show them now. to _make_ them understand. but there is no time. no time. the alarm must not be raised. no one can escape. and there is no time, because it all must be done before_

His brother curls up tightly in his sleep like some tiny woodland animal. Safe and protected, he sleeps the deep sleep of the innocent. Soft, pale flesh, and tiny, tiny bones. Infinitely fragile. Infinitely precious.  
_it took three days to sharpen his sword. it hums in his hand at it cuts through air. through flesh. the bodies fall. he counts the torturous slow tick of the seconds passing_

Infinitely breakable.  
_countless shades of red, and his parents' faces_

It cannot be allowed.  
_blood sprays cold across his face. all that is left now is to wait. it won't be long_

Sasuke must never be allowed to shatter.

_o_

Once, long ago, there was a name that no one in his clan would speak. Now there are two.

Everyone must have their monsters.

_o_

Konoha on fire.

Reasons for everything, but no reason for a five-year-old boy to be standing alone in the forest breathing ash and the taste of metal.

And then the fox starts screaming, and he's no longer standing, he's running.

Kyuubi. Demon of fire and blood and madness, looming as big as the whole world.

Reasons for everything, but no reason to run toward instead of away. No reason to jump onto the back of Fear himself.

Coarse fur beneath his hands, and massive teeth snapping past his head.

The world seen for the first time in a thousand shades of red, every edge framed in crystal clarity.

The fox screaming again, a howl that reverberates through to his bones as he scrambles higher, climbing towards the head far above. Pain searing across his face.

A name, given to him in the snarl of the fox, a challenge screamed to the heavens, and a prophesy is all he remembers after he wakes. The blood is already dry on his cheeks by the time he stumbles back into the village.

_o_

A full moon, and Shisui dead. Reasons for everything except the twin scars on his face.

His teenage self staring, waiting, across the rift of years passing. Anger and flames, the familiarity in tasting ash and metal every time he uses a fire jutsu.

Knowledge and hatred and prophesy, so entwined that one cannot be told from the other.

Sasuke and destruction and the question he must ask the Kyuubi before he dies.


End file.
